Foreign Language
by Wicked R
Summary: Demons and Humans find themselves in a situation where they have to work together. After The Importance Of Being Phoebe.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Foreign Language  
Author: Wicked R

Disclaimer: WB is the God, not me.  
Rating/Genre: G/Romance.  
Summary: Demons and Humans find themselves in a situation where they have to work together. After "The Importance Of Being Phoebe".

Teaser

The bolt released by the little silky black stocky being of the size of a ten year old child split to hit two targets at the same time. For the strength of its strike, the creature more resembled King Kong, than anything else. Paige had orbed out the way, but one of the tongues of the bolt hit Piper. She yelped in pain, even if she could already feel the baby starting to heal her. Thing was, she still had to wait it out, lying on the ground, without having the ability to help her sisters.

Phoebe was just getting up off the floor, her arm bleeding. The creature that didn't look like anything human jumped and punched her with its short upper limb. She plummeted, but not before kicking at the legs of the creature with shining ashy eyeballs and a twisted, satellite dish looking object on his head, making it fall onto the ground too. Paige used the moment to orbs some crystals around it to get it trapped.

The creature got up, and jumped again, out of the circle without any problems, kicking the youngest sister in the face while Piper got herself together enough to use her powers. It turned to confront her, sniffing around as if wanting to find out with its sense of smell where the danger was coming from, its small ogles still and cold. It lifted its upper tentacles the same way as when it was firing its bolts, but this time the bolt encircled him, giving him some kind of protection against anything that the witches tried from orbing heavy objects on him to throwing potions on it on a happy go lucky basis. Inside its globe, it stood, paying attention at them, but nothing more. Then it let one of its tentacles out of the electric sphere and fired with it at them, this time going their three ways.

"Leo!" Paige shouted as she orbed over to Phoebe's fallen body and out the way of the bit of bolt directed at her. With Piper stirring, but both of her half sisters down, she didn't stand a chance. When Leo manifested besides Piper, the youngest witch grabbed Phoebe's hand and orbed her away to P3, hoping that Leo will take her example and follow her.

"When was the last time we had to flee our own home?" Piper growled, holding her healing head.

"You mean apart from being thrown out by Cole?" Phoebe supplied, rubbing her chest and arm that was just mended by Leo. She stood up, trying to clean her modern peasant style short dress, but then she stopped, sighing and looking up the steps of the club, "what now? You couldn't want our house again, your last attempt failed miserably."

"I'm here cause I wanted to make sure you survived the assail," Cole said composed, descending the stairs as he used to when they had been dating.

"You're more than capable of killing us all. So why don't you just go ahead and save everybody the bother?" Paige barked angrily.

"If you could vanquish me, you would," Cole retorted level-headed, "but you can't so could you save me the bother?"

"He had always liked these mind games, that's what it is," Phoebe explained glaring at him, "where did you get this demon from? Cause in the book it won't be."

"No, it won't," Cole admitted, "cause he's not a demon at all and thus nothing to do with me whatsoever. That, ladies and gentleman, was an alien."

tbc


	2. Off The Record

Chapter 1: Off The Record

There was a beat of silence. After darting a brief apprehensive look at each other, they all turned their attention back to Cole with disbelief written on their faces

"Just give it up, Cole," Phoebe said scrutinising him intensely, "that was a pretty shoddy plan last time, getting me back. This one is even lousier. Since when do we believe in aliens?"

"Since you got your powers? Demons are of extraterrestrial origin, only they came such a long time ago, nobody remembers where from."

"So that was a demon after all," Paige glared, "you just feel like talking fancy."

"No, that was a present-day alien. One that came to take over the world. No, really. Your powers didn't work on him, right? Doesn't that prove he's not a demon?"

"It only proves he's powerful," Piper supplied.

"But not even one tiny bit? Any of your powers or magical doings? Besides, my powers are useless against him as well. In fact whichever power my demons try to use against him, it still doesn't make a difference."

"Your demons? Guys, please tell again why is it we're talking to the leader of the underworld?" Paige complained.

"If they came to take over our world, why don't they go ahead and do that? Why didn't we hear about they so far?" Piper asked.

"And more importantly, why on earth would did one of them come to see the charmed ones?" Phoebe pointed out, "are we some kind of tourist attraction?"

"First thing the aliens did when they arrived, was taking the Grimoire," Cole explained, "they are gathering information to begin with. You're in the Grimoire. So you are being checked out as how much as a potential threat you are. By your performance, I don't think much."

"We're in the Grimoire?" Paige raised an eyebrow.

"Of course you're in the Grimoire. Lists all dangerous witches of all times...look, I don't expect you to believe me, cause why would you? This is a file we put together on them," a folder materialised on the bar, "with what we think they want, how they want it, what their strength and weaknesses are...I mean, we couldn't find any weaknesses yet, but take a look," he made himself disappear.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"...as I cause the seen  
to be unseen," Paige said the spell to help Piper clean up the complete mess caused by the aliens, or the Idegen, as demons called them as much as it was possible, cause they have destroyed pretty much almost everything in the house in the search for something. The mirrors were smashed, and over the floor there were empty drawers thrown all over, wrecked seats, counters, the laptop, they have shattered the whole lot to pieces, "okay, if Cole is annoyed with these guys cause they have reportedly killed over two hundred of his demons, and probably the several hundred that were reported missing, I would say good on the Idegens, but I don't see how we could like them under the circumstances."

"Not to mention taking the book of shadows," Piper prompted.

"It underlines what Cole said," Phoebe admitted, however unwillingly, "they could take it because they are immune to magic. All magic. So they can't be from this world."

"Can we not be canny with this?" Paige suggested, "according to Cole's accounts, the Idegens consider demonkind a bigger threat if any, and that is why they started eliminating them from Earth first. That is probably why they needed the Book of shadows as well. Can we not wait until they get rid of them all and then we launch some kind of attack? If this is all true and we need to, that is."

"I'm afraid you can't," Leo orbed in, "there have been reports of several witches being ruthlessly killed by these beings, and what's more, there have been sightings of the creatures in China, New Zealand and Italy, taking over churches and other places of worship. Apparently, they take no notice of military strongholds whatsoever."

"Makes sense. According to Cole, they started killing demons when they took charge of all temples down there," Paige read up from the files, "it gives them some sort of extra power over them, a spiritual advantage. I don't know why, they seem powerful enough as it is."

"So we must go and guard a church, any church," Piper tried, "it might hold them up? What do the Elders want us to do? What did they say?"

"Not anything. They have no idea Piper, there's nothing magical about this whole thing. They didn't say anything, apart from the fact that the war is on."

tbc

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	3. Null And Void

Chapter 2: Null And Void

Piper stood together with Leo, arms wrapped around each other in the dimly lit cathedral, with the sunshine partly coming through the tainted windows.

"We could still orb away, there's no point," Paige reminded them. The places of worship all over the world have been set on fire as if by remote control, there was no alien to fight. Being considered the less significant race, with humankind, they didn't even bother taking all churches. Their potent energy weapons have drawn energy from the altars themselves, as if violating the power of faith itself, turning one of humankinds' finest weapon against itself. They have crossed paths with the Idegens a number of times, managing to escape them with a hair's breath on every occasion. They witnessed the city being destroyed before their eyes, along with several other towns and localities.

Piper freed one hand, only to wrap it around her approaching sisters, pulling the other three people closer, idealess about what they could do.

"Cole. Maybe Cole knows something," Phoebe said unconvincingly, hoping he was alive for the reason that he had researched the Idegens for longer.

Suddenly a globe of electrical energy appeared in front of them. They stepped back while the sphere stretched out, knowing what was to come. A limb transpired from it, preceding by the whole revoltingly shiny body of the alien, still protected by its globe. One tentacle sneaked out again, distended abruptly, touching Phoebe with it. The next moment both the Idegen and their sister was gone.

---------------------------------------------------------------

For a second Phoebe considered the possibility of the Elders somehow interfering and taking her up with them, because there was whiteness all around her. Some initiative from them would have been well overdue. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was, shielding her eyes from the brightness. When she peaked out from between her fingers, she distinguished the far away walls of a large room that looked like it belonged on a spacecraft. Her eyes were drawn towards the small dark window, through which she could see the stars, the moon and Earth. She could make out some signs on the walls which might have been letters in some unknown language. Scaring her from behind, one of the Idegens approached, she couldn't tell if she met this one before or not, they all looked the same to her. It stopped a few steps away from her, apparently studying her. Its eyes wee still unmoving, but Phoebe could bet on the fact that she was scoped from inside out.

"We're inviting you to watch the death of your race," Phoebe heard some unarticulated voice in her head that wasn't speaking English, but communicated through hooking into the right synapses in her brain, activating the equivalent of the word it meant to say, "the final countdown for the eradication of all life on your planet commences in a few minutes, you'll see the effect though the porthole."

"Why?" Phoebe faced the alien, angry and indomitable for a last chance, although with her tears at ready.

"There are too many of you. There's only a certain amount of energy available to the whole universe, and with your current rate of development, soon you will take too much of the energy away from us, detrimental to our expansion."

"I can't believe there isn't a way to co-exist..."

"Don't talk about co-existence to me. The two main races of humans and demons can't co-exist on Earth either. We sent our scouts to report back about Earth years ago and you proved that you are not peaceful and were considered a potential threat. There's no turning back now. We've seen the evidence."

"What do you want from me?" Phoebe stood powerless in front of the being's argument, forlorn and shocked.

"Nothing," she felt the other smiling, although it had no mouth it could do it with, "we always keep an exemplar from each race we exterminate, for our museum. You were not our first choice from the humans, it was your president. We like to keep the leaders, they are more interesting for the museum visitors. We choose the leader of the demons as well, and it was him who persuaded us we should take you instead. He convinced us you too were complimentary life forms and represent all Earth together. Is that true?"

"I don't know...me and Cole...once...I suppose," she still only half cried in desperation, she couldn't believe it was all happening.

"Good. It doesn't matter now anyway. There are no other humans to choose from anymore."

Phoebe lifted her head, staring at the view from the window. The planet's blue atmosphere has somehow turned pink and going closer to the window she could see the starship emanating some capsules at it.

"We don't use precious energy, we use a universal poison," the alien explained.

"I don't believe you. What was it with the churches? Why didn't you poison us right away?"

"We didn't know if you could fight back. And we needed to switch you off from the cosmic energy that comes from belief in the spiritual. And if you don't trust me, see for yourself. That what I sense you think of as a window, is a telescope. Use it, it magnifies enough for you to see any street or corner. Find out if anybody is still alive..." The creature rolled up into an energy ball and disappeared. With it, the lights went out too.

tbc


	4. With You

Chapter 3: With You

Phoebe shivered. It wasn't cold at all, probably the air conditioning or whatever heated the room was adjusted to what a human preferred so that the item for the aliens' museum reached destination intact. It was the devastation that made her tremble as she stared ahead with dilated pupils unable to shed any tears over the fact that when she had looked down on her planet as the space invader instructed her, all was as it claimed it was. So much pain deadened her all over. The manor she didn't have the courage to look at, but she didn't want to see it anyway. She wouldn't have been able to take it. She just lay comatose on the floor instead till she felt strong arms pick her up. She wrapped her arms around Cole's neck and started to sob into his chest. The only two other remaining earthly arms were embracing her and she didn't object them being Cole's. However it was, it was better than facing grief and hopelessness alone. Nothing mattered now, good and evil didn't make sense, since none of the sides existed. It was just him and her.

"It will be all right. We'll be okay," Cole said quietly.

"What!" Phoebe pushed him away a little, "how? Just because you still have me the rest doesn't count? I cannot handle this!" She said with an exasperated, trembling voice, "we have lost everything..."

"Not necessarily, I have a plan. I think I can dimension hop us out of here. These walls protect themselves from everything that is in some way magical, but if I came out the wasteland I should be able to do this too."

"But where Cole? Where? Didn't you see what happened on Earth? Universal poison. I guess that means the same for the demons too as it means to the humans..." She stammered, not able to utter the exact terrible words, going around it and expressing it another way. She again, started to shudder and cry.

He wrapped his warm arms around her even tighter, "stop crying. I need you with me in this. We'll go back in time."

She gulped and cleaned her face into his shirt, just for the sake of argument, "even if we knew about these aliens earlier...we can't fight them. We have no weapons against them. Now, or in the past."

"We're not going to fight them. We're gonna convince them we are not a threat. I remember that while I was the Source, I heard rumours about these aliens being around, indomitable and gathering information, but I was too busy with trying to convince the demons that we were truly on evil's side to be able to give it any attention. When I came back from the wasteland they were not around anymore, so that means they decided about us being a threat around that time."

"And how are we gonna convince them that humans and demons are the best pals?"

"I don't know. But I'm sure we can figure something when we are there."

"Then what are you waiting for? Shimmer us already! We are getting further and further away from the Earth."

"That shouldn't matter. It is more of a difficulty as a time jump and passing the force field, than distancewise. Shimmering is primarily for distance, that's the easiest part. Don't worry, we are not going to arrive to destination any time soon. I've seen their maps, their home is several galaxies away and they can't distance travel that far, that is why they have built ships."

"But...but why wait?"

"Because of the number of times I had to heal myself over the last forty-eight hours. I can't do it just now Phoebe, I need to sleep."

She looked at him before pulling him into an embrace, "we are actually gonna go back to where it could still all turn out well," she whispered into his ear and they both knew she wasn't talking about the aliens. At this point in time, she very much cared if he was alive or not. Loosing him would have been as if her pain would have doubled if that was possible at all and then there would be no love, and nothing left for her and she would reel in the unctuous depths of misery and seclusion forever, "lie down," she commanded alarmed, pulling him down so his head was in her lap and ran her fingers through his hair, somehow feeling that everything should be okay now as he said it would.

tbc


	5. Not So Much

Chapter 4: Not So Much

"Phoebe, you heard what he said, he's gonna kill us, help us!" Phoebe heard Piper's voice from the bathroom of Cole's apartment where she was leaning against the door, dizzy from the time jump. She waited till the she could see from the darkness that momentarily clouded her mind and stepped into the living room where she could see the fragments of Cole pulling back together. Phoebe picked up the crystal that rolled furthest away from floor.

"Phoebe?" Piper enquired about her sister's stance.

"Oh, guys," Phoebe ran to her sisters, "it's so nice to see you."

"What?" Leo said confused.

"Crystal!" Paige commanded the object from Phoebe's hand to complete the circle and activated the trap.

"No, no, no," Phoebe objected, "you don't understand. If we kill Cole now the aliens will think we are violent and we won't be able to save the earth."

"Phoebe," Piper fretted, "say the spell for god's sakes, cause if not, we are dead."

"No, you'll be dead if you vanquish Cole. Can't you see he's standing there without any inclinations to harm you?"

"Phoebe, you can't convince them right here and now, you know that," Cole shrugged, "they don't know where you're coming from. But one step in making them believe what we came here for to do, is saying the vanquishing spell. As I'm no longer the Source, it can't harm me. Not to mention the invincibility factor..."

"He's no longer the Source? But we've seen him disintegrate a few seconds ago. Prudence, Penelope, Patricia, Melinda..."

"Are you sure about this Cole?" Phoebe asked as flames emerged next to him. To him nodding and staring into her eyes encouragingly she continued, "Ashford, Helen, Laura and Grace..."

"What's going on here?" Paige frowned, but went along with the spell nevertheless, "Halliwell witches stand strong beside us."

"Vanquish this evil from time and space," the three sisters finished the enchantment, making an explosion that smashed the windows and sent Cole onto the floor.

Phoebe ran over to him, "are you ok?"

"What? What happened?" The other three people asked chaotically.

"I'm invincible, not unaffected," Cole groaned, "just how many times I have to heal myself in two days?" He sat up, moving his head around as if to see if he was able to use his neck muscles.

"The Source is not invincible, we proved that before," Piper argued.

"Who said he is the Source?" Phoebe stood up to face her, "he is not the Cole you know and I'm not the same Phoebe. I'm not pregnant and we come from the future. We need to work together with demons to save the human race. I know that sounds unbelievable, and completely..."

"Absurd?" Leo asked.

"Yes. But it's true. Now Piper, could you get the spell that changes our powers so you can get my premonitions, touch me and see it for yourselves?"

"I better go and let the Seer see the future as well," Cole offered, "we know she is willing to compromise if both sides are equally at stake. It kinda like a similar situation as it was with the Hollow."

"Meet you at the manor," Phoebe told him as he blurred out, fazing the rest of them and sending them into a complete frenzy to jump over Phoebe with several questions at the same time.

tbc


	6. Rest

Chapter 5: Rest

Jeric, the mummifying demon leaned onto a car and watched Phoebe drive into the parking lot and get out of the mini, "great body. Mind if I borrow it for a while?"

"Yeah, I do," she pointed behind him, where Piper, Leo, Paige and Cole orbed in with Piper waving a hand and blasting Jeric into a pile black sand.

"Why was it again you said this might be a difficult demon to deal with?" The oldest sister looked at Phoebe.

"Never mind," her sister smiled, "I'm more worried about this being the first demon we vanquished in six month. What if the aliens saw it?"

"I don't think that could happen," Cole stepped next to her, "their spies are long gone and if there was going to be an extermination, the ship would be here already like last time. Since I was going to kill myself anyway, I didn't give a damn when it all happened for the first time, but I did notice it back then as well. And it's not here now, nor coming, I can assure you, I shimmered all over the galaxy just to be sure."

"I say we celebrate that," Paige offered, "and the fact that we can go ahead and crush demons now. I missed it terribly. With the Seer keeping back everybody from attacking innocents, well, where's the fun?"

"And maybe a little toast on your remarriage," Leo suggested, "nice that you didn't even invite us."

"It was...just a private occasion, just a promise to each other, nothing fancy. You know, big weddings never go according to plan in this family," Phoebe blushed, thinking about what they did afterwards.

She glanced at her husband, seeing his lips curl up in a wayward grin, "I don't mind a recount celebration ..."

The End.


End file.
